ful oppression toward their serfs, the unfortunate Indians. The latter were compelled to carry their tyrants in litters around the island, and to toil till nature was exhausted to satisfy their rapacity for gold. The benevolent feelings of Isabella caused her to make many stipulations with the new governor in their behalf; and, for their spiritual good, she sent out a fresh batch of ecclesiastics, consisting of a prelate and twelve of the order of Franciscans, which afterwards played such an important part in the affairs of Spanish America. These precautions, for want of proper enforcement, were all doomed to be unavailing; and the additional curse of negro slavery, afterwards destined to effect the ruin of the island, was now for the first time introduced to the shores of the new world. Considerable regard was shown to the interests of Columbus, and he, with his brothers, received some indemnity for their losses.

On the 13th of February, the fleet of Ovando, consisting of thirty sail, and carrying twenty-five hundred souls, sailed for Hispaniola. Many of those who embarked with him were persons of rank and distinction, and the remainder of the adventurers were of a far more useful and respectable class than had yet emigrated to the western world. Columbus, despite his injuries, had used his utmost exertions to promote the welfare of the colony and its establishment on a prosperous basis. Hardly had the expedition departed when a terrible storm arose. One of the ships was lost, with an hundred and twenty souls; and the shores of Spain were strewed with arti cles thrown overboard by the rest. The remainder were dispersed, but reassembled at the Canaries, and arrived at St. Domingo in the month of April.

CHAPTER XVII.

FRESH SCHEMES OF COLUMBUS-DEPARTURE ON HIS FOURTH AND LAST VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY-DESTRUCTION OF HIS ENEMIES-CRUISE ON

THE COAST OF HONDURAS ETC.-HIS DISAPPOINTMENT.

WHILE Columbus, dispossessed of his rightful government, and amused by deceptive promises, haunted the court at Granada, his old scheme for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre revived in his mind with great enthusiasm. He prepared careful statement, urging on the sovereigns the necessity of this pious undertaking, and also wrote to the pope, excusing his present inability to fulfil his former vows in behalf of that enterprise, which he said had been frustrated by the malicious. arts of the devil. He was, however, unable to engage the cautious Ferdinand in an undertaking which certainly afforded a greater prospect of hard blows than of profitable returns; and soon afterwards terms were arranged with the infidel masters of Palestine, by which Christian pilgrims were suffered to journey without molestation to the sacred city.

The indefatigable projector soon conceived a fresh enterprise, far more useful, and better fitted to his natural genius. The late splendid and profitable adventures of the Portuguese, who, doubling Africa, had opened a channel to the wealth of the Orient, had fired the avarice and ambition of every commercial nation. Columbus was still persuaded that the most notable and brilliant discovery yet remained to be made, and the directest pathway to the land of jewels and spices was yet to be laid open. As yet, no token of Asian wealth and civilization had been met in any of the extensive tracts explored by himself or his contemporaries. He now began to consider South America as a separate main-land, but still clung firmly to the belief that Cuba was a part of the great Asiatic Continent. The impetuous current which runs between them, he concluded, must flow from the Indian Sea, which in his opinion was connected with the Atlantic by a strait somewhere in the neigh

borhood of what is now known as the isthmus of Darien. This strait, the pathway to the golden shores of the East, he now proposed to discover and explore.

This enterprising plan met with the favor of the sovereigns, who were still willing to employ in extending their territories the man whom they had deprived of his right to rule them; and he was accordingly empowered to fit out a suitable expedition forthwith. Certain persons, learned in Arabic, were provided to further communication with the Grand Khan, the capital of which slippery potentate he now fully expected to attain. He was also permitted to take with him his natural son Fernando, and his brother the adelantado. With great injustice, however, the sovereigns forbade him to touch at the island of Hispaniola, a matter almost of necessity in a voyage of such length as he contemplated. Indeed, they solemnly assured him that his honors and dignities should be restored to him, and be enjoyed both by him and his posterity; but he probably by this time began to be aware of the hollowness and insincerity of royal professions. Meanwhile, the preparations for his voyage went on slowly, owing to the insidious artifices and obsta cles contrived by his enemy Fonseca. It was not until the 9th of May, 1502, that Columbus sailed from Cadiz on the last of his arduous voyages of discovery. At the age of sixty-six, with a frame broken down by hardship and exposure, and a mind depressed by persecution and ingratitude, he once more set forth on the noble enterprise of uniting the long-severed regions of the earth. His command consisted of four small caravels and one hundred and fifty men. He touched at the Canaries, and on the 25th took his departure for the western continent. After a brief stoppage at the Carribee islands, he sailed for St. Domingo, trusting to replace at that port one of his vessels, the bad sailing of which retarded the others. The jealous Ovando, however, would not permit him to land, and even forbade him to take refuge in the harbor against a storm whose approach he apprehended.

Thus ungraciously repulsed, yet ever mindful of the public

good, Columbus entreated the governor to delay for a short time the sailing of the fleet which was ready to depart for Spain his experienced eye detecting, amid the apparent tranquillity of the weather, strong signs of an approaching hurricane. His counsel was disregarded, and he hastened to find shelter for his own vessels in some unfrequented harbor or river of the coast. The fleet set sail, and within two days an awful hurricane arose. Many of the vessels were entirely lost, among them the principal ship of the squadron, containing Roldan, Bobadilla, and the ill-fated Guarionex. A vast quantity of treasure, wrung from the sufferings of the Indians, was also swallowed up; and the only vessel which was enabled to pursue the voyage was one which contained the property of Columbus-a circumstance which occasioned him and his friends to look upon this terrible disaster as an especial judgment against his persecutors.

Escaping with much difficulty from the tempest which had whelmed his enemies, the admiral in the month of July steered for Terra Firma in quest of his conjectured strait. He was at first drawn by currents to the southern shore of Cuba, and thence stretching south-west he discovered on the 30th a small island, which still retains its Indian name of Guanaja. It lies near the coast of Honduras, whose mountains are visible to the south. Here the Spaniards were surprised by the appearance of an immense canoe, which had probably come from Yucatan. It was filled with Indians, whose utensils indicated a considerable degree of art and ingenuity. There were copper bells and hatchets, and many curious and useful fabrics on board. Columbus now reasonably supposed that he was approaching a more civilized country: and had he pursued the direction which these people indicated, might soon have fallen upon the wealthy regions which lie to the westward of the Gulf of Mexico.

Eager, however, to prosecute his intended discovery, he set sail for the mainland, and, passing Cape Honduras, steered eastward along the coast in quest of the desired strait. On

landing, the natives, as usual, displayed great kindness and hospitality.

The fleet now struggled eastward for forty days amid a succession of tropical tempests and continual foul weather. It was not until the 14th of September that they rounded that point whence the coast runs southward, and which, in gratitude for his success, the admiral named Cape Gracias a Dios. He coasted for about sixty leagues along what is now called the Musquito Coast, and lost a boat's-crew, which he had dispatched up a river, by one of those terrible conflicts between the ocean and the stream which are peculiar to these shores. Leaving this "River of Disaster," he sailed onward, and on the 25th of September anchored his tempest-worn squadron in a beautiful harbor, formed by an island and the main-land.

A friendly intercourse was soon established with the natives, interrupted only by the mutual superstition of both parties. Don Bartholomew, seeking information from the Indians respecting their country, had ordered a notary-public to write down their replies; but no sooner had that official produced his mysterious implements, than the Indians dispersed in great terror, believing that some magical spell was intended to be thrown over them. To counteract the supposed enchantment, they burned a fragrant powder, the smoke of which, wafted to the Spaniards, might dispel the evil effects of their necromancy. The latter, in their turn, supposed themselves to be bewitched by the natives, and attributed all the bad luck and tempestuous weather which they had encountered to the magical charms of these worshippers of the devil. Columbus himself inclined to the same belief, and, in a letter to the sovereigns, assured them that the natives of this place (Cariari) were notable enchanters.

On the 5th of October, he again set sail, following the shore of Costa Rica, and soon anchored in a great bay, where he had been assured gold was to be found in abundance. The channel of this bay (Carnabaco) by which he entered, is still called the "Boca del Almirante" (Mouth of the Admiral). The